Love and Chocolate

This sweet little guy brought a heart shaped box of Russell Stover's to school for Carrie something-or-other, and then he ended up being too afraid to give them to her and, frankly, none of us could blame him. That wasn't going to go well. Love can be rough. He was quite a few years shy of being old enough for his friends to go out and get him drunk. I hope he ate the chocolates- they were the best you could buy in our isolated town in the North Country- there was no See's Candy, and no one had heard of Godiva, let alone Teuscher, or Neuhaus (we'd barely even heard of Switzerland or Belgium- we were 8). There were a lot of these episodes. The only good thing to come out of this was learning to root for the underdog of romance (little guy with the Russell Stover's, Colonel Brandon, any John Cusack character....). Anyway, every day is a holiday when you're in love. Designating a special day? That's just all kinds of pressure.

Not that we don't celebrate Valentine's day at our house- we do! We celebrate everything. We eat only red food- nothing challenging- beet vinaigrette, penne all'arrabbiata- no red velvet cake because it freaks me out a little. Usually we make rolled sugar cookies, heart shapes, sandwiched together with red jam and the top cookie with another shape cut out of it like a window- a small duck, a piglet. We make lots of them, and the girls give them to their friends, and so do I. We make chocolates too. There is some romance, but it's all on screen. This year we'll see Imagine Me and You- the girls were more in a Lemony Snicket stage when it came out, so we missed seeing it together. A nice bonus- a world where homogeneous heterosexuality is just assumed feels to us small and sad and dull (one of the few ways Greece sometimes disappoints, but, to be fair, we are comparing it to San Francisco). If I'm not wrong, this sweet movie was not overly self-conscious- much more plain love story than "gay love story." If we feel like a dose of underdog, we go for Notting Hill or, kind of obviously, High Fidelity.

Here are some things we make throughout the year, because they are easy, and easy to share, and we have fun in the kitchen together, and everyone likes them a lot. I put them in order of easiest to least easy (but still easy), with the links under the pictures. Wish you a happy, low-key, messy Valentine's Day.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Double Greek Coffee Meringues

Candy Bar Meringues

Meringue Mushrooms (Huge Hit with Children!)

Salted Caramel Truffles

Butter Ganache Truffles

Salted Butter Caramels

Love is great. It's romantic love that stirs up all the trouble. You never go wrong staying in the kitchen, and sharing something sweet with everyone dear to you.

I love that Strawberries start their
hothouse season so early-
we had our first this week, and they were good!

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Fabulous Meringue Mushrooms Outshine the Bûche.

Even if you have enough time, stamina, ingredients, and patience to complete a festive holiday table with a grand Bûche de Noël, the one thing you surely do not have enough of is refrigerator space. A Bûche is not complete without this surprisingly simplest ornament. But the ornament without the Bûche? A semi-avante-garde tromp l'oeil delight! A tower of these and a tower of holiday mandarins, some espresso and cordials, and everyone will feel festive, indulged, and light as a feather. And you can make them whenever suits you- they take about 10 minutes of actual work, another hour or so drying in the oven, and 10 minutes of child-friendly kitchen play to assemble.

We will need:

4 egg whites

200 g/ 1 C sugar

pinch salt

tiny dash vinegar

vanilla

a chocolate bar (50 g/2 oz. should be plenty)

non-stick parchment

a zip-lock bag

About egg whites- so many dishes (creme patisserie, eggnog) will call for yolks. Just slip the whites into a jar- 3 or 4 is what you need for most recipes- label how many, and pop them in the freezer. When you need them, put the closed jar in a dish of water- they will be ready to use in about half an hour. You are never far from a beautiful airy dessert (like this pavlova, or these coffee meringues) when you have a jar of whites in the freezer,asI happily did this morning.

Beat the egg whites with the salt and vinegar and when it starts to foam up, start gradually adding the sugar, and keep beating until it is glossy and dense. Turn the top of a lip-lock bag over like you would the neck on a turtleneck sweater and fill with meringue-

This keeps the seal clean. Turn the edge back up, seal the bag, pressing as much air out as possible, and sip off one of the corners to make a small opening. Pipe "stems" by touching the tip to the paper, and squeezing lightly as you pull up. Make caps by squeezing as you hold the bag in place close to the paper. They will all have peaks:

Put some water in a dish, wet your finger, and smooth out the tops:

Dust them randomly with cocoa powder, sifted through a strainer:

Place in a very low oven- 90 C/200F- with a fan if you like. Leave them until they are dry enough to  remove from the paper. 

Melt the chocolate over simmering water or on low power in the microwave. Paint the bottoms of the mushroom caps, and place the stems on. You can make a small indentation with your finger to place the stem upside down, so the flat side is showing. We did half of each.

Smear any drips of chocolate on the carps to look like dirt. Let the chocolate set, and keep in a box wherever you have room until you are ready to put them out.

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